Bathurst workers told Simplot may close

Employees at a major food manufacturing plant in the state's central west, have been told it is at risk of closing.

Simplot says its factories at Bathurst and at Devonport in Tasmania can not compete with lower cost imported products.

The company says it has conducted a six month review of its frozen and canned vegetables operations.

The Managing Director, Terry O'Brien, says if ways to improve profits can not be found, the Bathurst plant, which employees almost 200 people, will close next year .

"The vegetable business in Australia has been a chronic underperformer from a profit perspective for a long long time.

"The way the market's running at the moment our reading of the prospects of the market for quite some time to come suggests that it's not going to get better, if anything, it's going to get worse."

Simplot says it may need government support to stop it closing the plants.

However, Mr O'Brien says the company does not want a "band aid payment" like those given to some struggling car manufactures.

"What we're not keen on is just a hand out that sort of lasts a period and then you're back where you started.

"What we're talking to them about is the potential of assisting with capital expenditure, so that we can actually get technology or efficient machinery in there that might give us an improved profitability."